The Era When Defensive Pokémon Strategies Were Overpowered

Gothitelle, 2015

[homespunheroes]

Don't forget to play the video at x0.25 Speed for the real Stall experience!

[saiyaddanapudi]

Dugtrio joining the war on stall on the side of stall.

[raidcrhonos]

"You don't have a god given right to stealth rock" had me laughing 😂

[sekaihunter]

Slowbro casually being in a All-Star Stall team in every single generation thanks to his defense and Regenerator:

[grunkleg.]

Another important thing to mention, Dugtrio actually got buffed pretty considerably going into Gen 7. Its okay 80 base Attack got bumped all the way up to a decent base 100, which made it even easier for it to pick off important targets

[redwings]

Mega Sableye got hit pretty hard by a couple other indirect nerfs in Sun and Moon too. First of all, prankster was nerfed to no longer work on dark types, which meant Sableye had fewer entry points. Secondly, and maybe even bigger, was the mega speed change mechanic. When mega evolutions attacked with the speed of their base form, Sabeleye could mega evolve while moving first because of prankster, which was huge. It could mega evolve with priority calm mind, will'o'wisp, or recover, while simultaneously getting access to magic bounce that same turn. It had status protection, physical attack protection, special attack protection, and hazard protection as a priority move to go alongside its massive defensive stats. The only way to overpower it was basically with a choice band fire type, or an attack so strong it 2hkoed through these moves.

After the mega speed change mechanic, Sableye couldn't do that, so if it wanted to mega evolve, it would usually need to take an attack before it could set up. Since Mega Sableye is at its most vulnerable before it sets up, getting that extra move to increase its defenses before it takes an attack was massive in making it feel unkillable. While most megas loved the speed mechanic changes, mega sableye was kinda (probably justifiably) screwed over by them.

There was also the indirect nerf of just more really good fairies being added to the game, so it was hard to justify mega sableye in a meta dominated by the tapus. Tapu Fini's misty terrain also probably provided a team protection against will'o'wisp. So just a lot of things indirectly happened to make Mega Sableye significantly worse than it had been the previous generation.

[CantusTropus]

I also love the fact that strategies that were slept on at the time when older gens were still current then retroactively get brought back because that strategy was great in a later gen. Dugtrio Stall was mentioned in the video, but there are other examples, such as the Knock Off spam of Gen 6 making gen 4&5 players realise that they should be using Knock Off more even when it doesn't do real damage; or the rise in appreciation for Clefable in those same gens due to people using it so much in Gen 6 (even though it's not a Fairy type in the older gens).

[aldrichunfaithful]

for anyone wondering why dugtrio is allowed in gen 3, there's 4 reasons. firstly, stall is not very good because of spikes and sand. roost doesn't exist so theres no spike immune mons with recovery, and there aren't any sand immune mons with recovery besides wish jirachi and recover cradilly. secondly, there's no focus sash so dugtrio has a much harder time coming in. thirdly, dugtrio needs choice band to get most KOs so its choice locks get punished very hard. and lastly it doesn't have sucker punch or amazing coverage.

[unoriginal]

Sabeleye-M being such a good staller it stalled its own ban lol

[raviolieothedisgustingsupe]

2:03 funny analogy considering many stall teams have seismic toss somewhere on there, a move that does 100 damage in 1 turn

[RainbowLizardOne]

Fun Fact: Gholdengo is bulkier than Mega Sableye, and that's discounting ability to hold items like Air Balloon or Leftovers. Just thought that was interesting.

[Arden]

I still can’t believe they gave Shadow Tag to something besides Wobbuffet. Not that he isn’t cheese either but it was pretty clear that ability was balanced around the pokemon having literally like 5 learnable moves and none of them are direct attacks (or Trick)

[superjeroenbros]

Have I really been playing ps for 9 years that I can remember this…

[mochikinako]

To my experience, the reason why fighting stall was troublesome was mostly because of the heavily skewed risk reward trade-off in favour of the stall player (well unless you use manaphy).

The stall player can often afford to make multiple mistakes, while you are the one who has to actively position and make greater risks in order to outplay them, especially with more offensive and frailer cores.

I vividly remember how it was simply necessary to prepare a dedicated stall breaker or stall proof mon for top ladder/ tournament play in the days of Gen 7 OU. Z move nukes were often too predictable at higher levels of play, pursuit trappers were susceptible to status and hazards… That’s why I always try to bring a whirlpool tapu fini, makes life slightly easier against some stall mus lol.

[pikminman]

the fact that this happened before the most evil pokemon to ever exist, toxapex, came out is astounding. seeing the demon fall to UU added a holiday to my calendar. i don't care how good it actually is. it is the flagship mon for me to hate on whenever the topic comes up.

of course, it's not like that wasnt talked about in the gen 7 part of the video.

[willreasoner]

Competitive Pokemon used to be effectively just complicated rock, paper, scissors (not a good thing) now it's basically just rock, paper, scissors, gun. Gun represents Gen 9 mons like Chi-Yu, Iron Hands, Cien Po, Kingambit. They beat rock paper and scissors and they're immune to all of them too.. if you both choose gun then it's literally just down to luck

[aejdsagjsp]

Stall players probably do other fun activities outside of battles. Like watching paint dry, eating rice one grain at a time, waiting in line for 2 hours for a amusement park ride, watching ads on mobile games

[jaycobobob]

Oh man this was when I was finishing up high school. We didn't have a lot going on so I remember playing a ton of ORAS Singles, especially UU. Mega Agron was my GOAT. Crazy to think that was already almost a decade ago

[pmnt_]

I never realized that trapping was banned to nerf stall teams. I would have guessed that trapping made hyperoffense overpowered by removing the one counter to your wincon. Interesting.

[TherealMatthias]

I just hate playing against stall. It’s so annoying to beat that even when I manage to beat it, I’m not happy anymore. Like it’s fun to out think balanced or hyper offensive players, but it’s just exhausting against stall. It saps my excitement. I get the whole thing about it being a valid way to play, but it’s the only kinda strategy I’ve never found fun